I am currently missing my first scheduled day of training since May 2nd.

I should be out on an 8 mile run today. My last big run before tapering all next week for my upcoming Olympic Triathlon in Verona, WI.

Instead I'm laying on the couch with kleenex, a bowl of ice cream, cough drops and a bottle of Benadryl with a curly straw in it.

Every year in late May and the first week of June, I usually get terrible allergies from tree pollen. Bad enough to have landed me in the ER a few times in years past. Bad enough to keep an Epi-pen around. But this year, those two weeks came and went without any issue. I figured that our weird weather had eliminated it.

Rewind to about 3 days ago. NOPE. Allergy season was just delayed by a couple weeks. After my swim on Tuesday I could barely drive home because I was sneezing nonstop. No big deal though, take my allergy medication and move on with training.

But of course as luck would have it, work also picked this time to send the annual summer cold strain around the care facility, so in addition to allergies, I've also developed a cold. Problematic in that allergy medications and cold medications seem to be contradicting each other and causing my brain to feel like it weighs about 90 lb.

I'm supposed to be hitting a 30 mile bike ride tomorrow as well (last long bike before taper). So we shall see how things are going tomorrow, but I have a feeling it's going to be cut short.

The good news is that it rained last night, and is supposed to all day today. And again tomorrow. So that should at least wet down the pollen enough to alleviate half of my illness problems.

Other than that, a much needed quiet week of training (thank you for all the kind words on my last entry, it meant a lot). I've included some pictures from this week of training.

Father's Day 18 mile ride out to French Island, WI:

I should probably find a way to keep track of running directions on hot, humid days:

Pettibone beach park:

I've got 8 days until the Verona Triathlon. I'm hoping the allergies and cold clear up by then or it might be a very long race. I attempted 3 miles of running yesterday with it and while I finished, it was nauseating and uncomfortable.

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